Maximum-likelihood Synchronization Research Articles

A Molecular Communication Perspective on Synchronization of Coupled Microfluidic-Spectroscopy.

A challenge for real-time monitoring of biochemical processes, such as cells, is detection of biologically relevant molecules. This is due to the fact that spectroscopy methods for detection may perturb the cellular environment. One approach to overcome this problem is coupled microfluidic-spectroscopy, where a microfluidic output channel is introduced in order to observe biologically relevant molecules. This approach allows for non-passive spectroscopy methods, such as mass spectrometry, to identify the structure of molecules released by the cell. Due to the non-negligible length of the microfluidic channel, when a sequence of stimuli are applied to a cell it is not straightforward to determine which spectroscopy samples correspond to a given stimulus. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem by taking a molecular communication (MC) perspective on the coupled microfluidic-spectroscopy system. In particular, assignment of samples to a stimulus is viewed as a synchronization problem. We develop two new algorithms for synchronization in this context and carry out a detailed theoretical and numerical study of their performance. Our results show improvements over maximum-likelihood synchronization algorithms in terms of detection performance when there are uncertainties in the composition of the microfluidic channel.

Maximum likelihood synchronization algorithm correction for photon-counting communications with blocking loss.

To realize deep space optical communications with high capacity and sensitivity, synchronization of pulse-position modulation (PPM) signals is crucial. In this study, the maximum likelihood synchronization algorithm based on inter-symbol guard times was generalized to the scenario with strong blockage of single-photon detectors, where higher PPM slot frequency and signal-noise ratio could be adopted. Furthermore, a slot frequency offset compensation method was proposed, and simulations and experiments were performed to verify the performance improvement of the proposed corrected synchronization algorithm under blockage. The results indicated that the deadtime-corrected synchronization scheme could effectively overcome the performance degradation of the original model under high photon flux, provide estimation (0.02749 slots @ root-mean-square error) close to the Cramér-Rao Bound, and error rates close to ideal synchronization in the experiment.

Symbol Synchronization for Diffusion-Based Molecular Communications.

Symbol synchronization refers to the estimation of the start of a symbol interval and is needed for reliable detection. In this paper, we develop several symbol synchronization schemes for molecular communication (MC) systems where we consider some practical challenges, which have not been addressed in the literature yet. In particular, we take into account that in MC systems, the transmitter may not be equipped with an internal clock and may not be able to emit molecules with a fixed release frequency. Such restrictions hold for practical nanotransmitters, e.g., modified cells, where the lengths of the symbol intervals may vary due to the inherent randomness in the availability of food and energy for molecule generation, the process for molecule production, and the release process. To address this issue, we develop two synchronization-detection frameworks which both employ two types of molecule. In the first framework, one type of molecule is used for symbol synchronization and the other one is used for data detection, whereas in the second framework, both types of molecule are used for joint symbol synchronization and data detection. For both frameworks, we first derive the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) symbol synchronization schemes as performance upper bounds. Since ML synchronization entails high complexity, for each framework, we also propose three low-complexity suboptimal schemes, namely a linear filter-based scheme, a peak observation-based scheme, and a threshold-trigger scheme, which are suitable for MC systems with limited computational capabilities. Furthermore, we study the relative complexity and the constraints associated with the proposed schemes and the impact of the insertion and deletion errors that arise due to imperfect synchronization. Our simulation results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed synchronization schemes and suggest that the end-to-end performance of MC systems significantly depends on the accuracy of the symbol synchronization.

Maximum Likelihood Synchronization for DVB-T2 in Unknown Fading Channels

In this paper, we consider the timing and carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation problem for digital video broadcasting-second generation terrestrial (DVB-T2) transmissions by utilizing the P1 symbol. Unlike previous studies, an unknown fading channel scenario is considered. Two maximum likelihood (ML) methods are derived by modeling the transmitted signal as a stochastic and, respectively, a deterministic unknown waveform. The proposed stochastic ML (SML) algorithm can jointly estimate the received signal power, time delay, and CFO. By ignoring the presence of null carriers in the P1 symbol, the SML method can be simplified with a lower complexity. Meanwhile, the proposed deterministic ML method is more flexible and computationally simpler compared with the SML method. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performances of the proposed estimators along with several existing solutions for DVB-T2 signal synchronization. In addition, Cramer–Rao lower bounds are evaluated for the considered estimation problem.

On Maximum-Likelihood Blind Synchronization Over WSSUS Channels for OFDM Systems

Various blind synchronization methods built on the maximum likelihood (ML) principle have been proposed, where the addressed scenarios include additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), single-path fading, and multipath fading channels. We consider ML blind synchronization over wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) channels. Different from existing studies, we exploit a more complete signal correlation function and find the carrier frequency offset estimate to be the solution of a quartic equation, rather than the phase angle of a complex number. As the truly ML synchronizer (dubbed MLE) is very complicated, we also derive a reduced-complexity alternative (dubbed RCE). It is found that the RCE yields indistinguishable performance from the MLE, at a somewhat lower complexity than an existing rival. We also present an in-depth theoretical analysis and comparison of the performance of various methods. Simulations show that the proposed methods yield rather robust performance in modeling errors of the fading rate and the channel power-delay profile (PDP).

Joint Symbol Detection for Multi-Receiver Without Signal Synchronization and Array Alignment

This letter deals with symbol sequence detection of multi-receiver signals based on the maximum-likelihood (ML) criterion. A novel iterative scheme is proposed to estimate the symbols without synchronization or alignment of timing and phase. Instead of the accurate delay compensation and optimal samples recovery, the detection of symbols employs the direct calculation of the matched filter outputs, eliminating the need for separate synchronizer and combiner. Since the received samples at each branch are viewed as incomplete observations, the joint ML estimation of symbols can be obtained in an iterative way by means of the expectation-maximization algorithm. The proposed scheme is compared with conventional signal combining schemes and joint ML synchronizers by simulation results. It is shown that the proposed detector enables significant improvement on the bit-error rate for weak received signals.

Physical layer orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing acquisition and timing synchronization security

AbstractOrthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM) has become the manifest modulation choice for 4G standards. Timing acquisition and carrier frequency offset synchronization are prerequisite to OFDM demodulation and must be performed often. Most of the OFDM methods for synchronization were not designed with security in mind. In particular, we analyze the performance of a maximum likelihood synchronization estimator against highly correlated jamming attacks. We present a series of attacks against OFDM timing acquisition: preamble whitening, the false preamble attack, preamble warping, and preamble nulling.The performance of OFDM synchronization turns out to be very poor against these attacks, and a number of mitigation strategies and security improvements are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Iterative ML Symbol Detection without Timing and Phase Synchronization

This paper deals with maximum-likelihood (ML) detection of symbol sequence in the absence of synchronization information. A novel iterative scheme is proposed to obtain the ML estimates of the symbols without an estimation of synchronization parameters. Instead of the optimal sampling point recovery and explicit carrier phase compensation, the detection of symbols employs the direct calculation of the matched filter output, eliminating the need for a separate synchronizer. The detection problem is treated as ML estimation from incomplete data, which is solved by means of an iterative scheme based on the expectation-maximization algorithm. The proposed scheme is compared with conventional non-data-aided and iterative ML synchronizers. Accordingly, the simulation results indicate that the proposed detector enables improvements on both the bit error rate and convergence property.

Lower Bounds to the Performance of Bit Synchronization for Bandwidth Efficient Pulse-Shaping

Bandwidth efficient signaling requires using pulse-shaping that inherently has intersymbol interference (ISI) except when the timing is perfect. Several lower bounds to the mean-square-error (MSE) of non-data-aided bit-synchronizers are derived for this case. The optimal lower bound is derived using the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion for a sequence of binary pulse amplitude modulated pulses in the presence of ISI and Gaussian noise. This lower bound is used as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of other synchronizers in a practical scenario. It is shown that a previous lower bound based on the ISI-free ML synchronizer cannot be used to lower bound the MSE of bit-synchronizers. A detection theory bound (DTB) (also called Ziv-Zakai bound) is applied to the symbol timing recovery problem in the presence of ISI and it is shown that this bound is a tight lower bound on the MSE of the ML synchronizer. A simple lower bound on this DTB is derived and it is shown that the simple bound is almost as tight as the well known modified Cramer-Rao bound (MCRB) at moderate values of SNR, while it does not suffer from the shortcomings of the MCRB at small values of SNR.

Robust Plateau Removed Synchronization Techniques for Multiple-antenna OFDM-Based DVB-H Receivers

As a special format of multiple input multiple output (MIMO), multiple-antenna diversity reception can be used to improve the signal quality of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based digital video broadcasting for handheld (DVB-H) systems. Under multipath fading channels, synchronization methods proposed for the single input single output (SISO) OFDM systems may be to fail if they are directly applied to the multiple-antenna OFDM-based DVB-H receivers. In this paper, a plateau removed maximum likelihood synchronization scheme is proposed for the multiple-antenna OFDM-based DVB-H receivers. Compared to the conventional maximum likelihood multiple antenna OFDM synchronization scheme, the proposed scheme not only removes the timing ambiguity caused by the plateau problem and has better detection capability but also is robust to different multipath fading channels. System performance studies are used to verify the efficiency of the proposed scheme for the multiple-antenna OFDM-based DVB-H receiver under different fading channel situations.

Multi-antenna noncoherent ML synchronization for UWB-IR faded channels

This contribution focuses on the maximum likelihood (ML) noncoherent synchronization of multi-antenna transceivers working in faded environments and employing ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) transmit technology. In particular, the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) is derived for the general case of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) UWB-IR systems and used to compare the ultimate performance of three basic transmit schemes, thereinafter referred to as single input multiple output (SIMO), MIMO equal signaling (MIMO-ES), and MIMO orthogonal signaling (MIMO-OS) ones. Thus, the noncoherent ML synchronizer is developed for the better performing transmit scheme (i.e., the SIMO one) and its performance is evaluated under both signal acquisition and tracking operating conditions. The performance gain in the synchronization of UWB-IR signals arising by the utilization of the multi-antenna technology is also evaluated.

Maximum-likelihood synchronization and channel estimation for OFDMA uplink transmissions

Maximum-likelihood estimation of the carrier frequency offset (CFO), timing error, and channel response of each active user in the uplink of an orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access system is investigated in this study, assuming that a training sequence is available. The exact solution to this problem turns out to be too complex for practical purposes as it involves a search over a multidimensional domain. However, making use of the alternating projection method, we replace the above search with a sequence of mono-dimensional searches. This results in an estimation algorithm of a reasonable complexity which is suitable for practical applications. As compared with other existing semi-blind methods, the proposed algorithm requires increased overhead but has more flexibility as it can be used with any subcarrier assignment scheme. Simulations indicate that the accuracy of the CFO estimates asymptotically achieves the Cramer-Rao bound.

A GLRT approach to data-aided timing acquisition in UWB radios-Part II: training sequence design

The overall system efficiency of impulse radio communications relies critically on judicious allocation of transmission resources, a portion of which should be used to ensure successful timing acquisition. In data-aided mode, optimum timing offset estimation depends not only on the mechanism used for energy capture and the acquisition algorithm employed to recover timing information, but also on the training sequence (TS) pattern from which the timing information is to be extracted. Furthermore, the transmission resources used for timing have to be balanced with that for conveying information messages in order to strike desirable tradeoffs between timing accuracy and information rate. In Part I of this paper, data-aided timing offset estimation is derived based on the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion, where only symbol-rate samples are needed for low-complexity receiver processing. To minimize the mean-square timing errors of these ML synchronizers while at the same time maximizing the average system capacity, TS design and transmit power allocation are investigated in this paper. The optimum training pattern and the number, placement, and power distribution between training and information-bearing symbols are formulated as a resource allocation optimization problem whose solution optimizes system-level performance with the minimum amount of resources consumed.

A new approach to rapid PN code acquisition using iterative message passing techniques

Iterative message passing algorithms on graphs, which are generalized from the well-known turbo decoding algorithm, have been studied intensively in recent years because they can provide near-optimal performance and significant complexity reduction. In this paper, we demonstrate that this technique can be applied to pseudorandom code acquisition problems as well. To do this, we represent good pseudonoise (PN) patterns using sparse graphical models, then apply the standard iterative message passing algorithms over these graphs to approximate maximum-likelihood synchronization. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better performance than both serial and hybrid search strategies in that it works at low signal-to-noise ratios and is much faster. Compared with full parallel search, this approach typically provides significant complexity reduction.

Frame Synchronization for Coded Systems Over AWGN Channels

For the additive white Gaussian noise channel, we consider the problem of frame synchronization for coded systems. We present an algorithm that takes advantage of soft information provided by a soft decoder to produce an enhanced estimate of the frame boundary. To reduce complexity, a companion algorithm is introduced that is a hybrid of the optimal uncoded frame synchronizer introduced by Massey and the list synchronizer introduced by Robertson. The high-complexity coded maximum-likelihood frame synchronizer used by Robertson will accordingly be replaced by our algorithm, which operates on decoder-provided soft decisions. The algorithm begins by obtaining a list of high-probability starting positions via the log-likelihood function of the optimal uncoded frame synchronizer. Then, a test /spl delta/ is used to decide if the decision of the optimal uncoded frame synchronizer is sufficient, or whether list synchronization is required. If the test chooses in favor of using the optimal uncoded synchronizer, the estimate is obtained with relative ease. Otherwise, list synchronization is performed, and statistics provided by the decoder are used to resolve the frame boundary. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the frame-synchronization-error rate (the probability of the synchronizer making an error) achieves the lower bound for signal-to-noise ratio values exceeding 1 dB.

Non—data—aided ML carrier frequency and phase synchronization in OFDM systems

AbstractIn this paper non—data—aided(NDA), maximum likelihood(ML) algorithms are derived for the carrier frequency and phase offset, separately, for OFDM systems employing M—PSK modulation scheme. NDA ML estimation algorithm for frequency offset estimation exploits the redundant information contained in the cyclic prefix proceeding the OFDM symbols, thus reducing the need for pilots. Its mean—squared performance is obtained analytically and compared with simulation results. It is observed that the resulting algorithm generates very accurate estimation even when the offset is high. It is also shown that the frequency estimator may be used in a tracking mode. The ML algorithm derived for the carrier phase estimation is also a non—data—aided(NDA) and maximizes the low SNR limit of the likelihood function averaged over M—PSK signal constellation. It is shown that for sufficiently small SNR the ML phase estimator obtained reduces to the familiar M/th order power synchronizer which belongs to the class of NDA feedforward carrier synchronizers introduced earlier in the literature. Its mean—squared performance is obtained analytically and compared with simulation results. We observe that the resulting algorithm generates very accurate estimation even when the phase offset is high, that the self noise is absent and the performance of the algorithm is basically the same as die Cramer—Rao bound for moderate to high SNR. Finally we note mat me error variance derived for the mean—squared performance of this NDA ML synchronizer is an extension of the approximate variance formula appeared in Reference 20,equation(14) for M—PSK.

Clock synchronization for wavelet-based multirate transmissions

This paper deals with symbol timing recovery for multirate transmission systems employing wavelets as signaling pulses either at baseband or with linear bandpass modulation. Our analysis is twofold. First, we investigate the impact of clock errors on the bit-error rate of the optimum receiver for a wavelet-based multirate signal. Second, we consider a nondata-aided maximum-likelihood clock synchronization scheme implemented as a multiple delay-locked loop. We derive a linearized loop model and assess its performance in terms of tracking jitter variance. The analytical results are contrasted with those obtained by simulation and with the relevant modified Cramer-Rao bound.

Maximum-likelihood synchronization of a single user for code-division multiple-access communication systems

Code-division multiple access (CDMA) has emerged as an access protocol well-suited for voice and data transmission. One significant limitation of the conventional CDMA system is the near-far problem where strong signals interfere with the detection of a weak signal. Multiuser detectors assume knowledge of all of the modulation waveforms and channel parameters, and exploit this information to eliminate multiple-access interference (MAI) and to achieve near-far resistance. A major problem in practical application of multiuser detection is the estimation of the signal and channel parameters in a near-far limited system. We consider maximum-likelihood estimation of users delay, amplitude, and phase in a CDMA communication system. We present an approach for decomposing this multiuser estimation problem into a series of single-user problems. In this method the interfering users are treated as colored non-Gaussian noise. The observation vectors are preprocessed to be able to apply a Gaussian model for the MAI. The maximum-likelihood estimate (MLE) of each user's parameters based on the processed observation vectors becomes tractable. The estimator includes a whitening filter derived from the sample covariance matrix which is used to suppress the MAI, thus yielding a near-far resistant estimator.

Fast-acquisition algorithm for joint maximum-likelihood data and bit synchronization epoch estimation in burst direct-sequence spread-spectrum transmission

We develop a fast-acquisition simplified joint maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation algorithm of the bit synchronization epoch and data bit values for a short-burst direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) transmission, in a white Gaussian noise environment. With respect to the optimal algorithm, the simplified procedure reduces the computational cost by more than one order of magnitude at no accuracy expense for carrier-to-noise ratios (CNRs) above 35 dB/spl middot/Hz.

Maximum-likelihood synchronization, equalization, and sequence estimation for unknown time-varying frequency-selective Rician channels

This paper develops a receiver structure to perform jointly maximum-likelihood (ML) synchronization, equalization, and detection of a linearly modulated signal transmitted over a time-varying frequency-selective Rician-faded channel, corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The receiver is particularly suited to a fast-fading channel, where other receivers that rely on estimating the channel cannot track it quickly enough. The signal mean and autocovariance are needed, and a scheme is proposed for estimating these quantities adaptively. The receiver processes the specular and diffuse components (corresponding to the signal mean and autocovariance) separately. Processing the known specular component is the classical detection problem. The unknown diffuse component is processed by predictors. We show that the predictors can achieve synchronization in a novel manner, if synchronization is required. A union bound on the receiver's bit-error rate (BER) is derived, and it tightly bounds simulated BERs in fast-fading at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).